


from the blackest room

by FordRiverBlues



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Present Tense, Rescue, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 07:27:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21442468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FordRiverBlues/pseuds/FordRiverBlues
Summary: The authorities on a new plane mistake Barry for an enemy spy. They want information he doesn't have. Barry just wants to survive.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 52





	from the blackest room

He knows he's in real trouble when they take his glasses. 

Up until then Barry’s been treating this like a misunderstanding, something he can resolve if he just gets the chance to talk to the right person. He’s been detained before, waylaid while searching for the Light, mistaken for a troublemaker or taken in by a city watch suspicious of outsiders. Most of the time he can talk his way out of it, disarm them by acting like an anxious, clueless nobody (anxious is not an act, never an act, but nobody except Barry needs to know that).

Except that the town watch is more hostile than usual, handles him a little rougher as they march him to the squat, ugly stone building on the outside of town. They ignore him as he tries to explain that he’s just a traveler (true) who’s lost his companion (also true). The building is covered in a heavy layer of dampening magic; Barry can feel it the minute he crosses the threshold, the weight of it settling on him and cutting him off from any of the spells he could use to get himself out of this, but even that isn’t anything he can’t work around. 

He has other skills besides magic, he reminds himself as the guard holding him by the back of the neck exchanges a rapid-fire report with the guard behind the desk. There is no reason to panic. They bind his hands and take his cloak and his knapsack, all of which is nothing he hasn’t had to deal with before. But then they take his glasses, and suddenly the world is blurred and dangerous and the anxiety that always hunches behind his sternum threatens suddenly to choke him. 

They shove him down what must be a short hallway, through a heavy-sounding door and into a dim room that stinks of damp and other things, metallic and chemical things, scared-animal things. Sweat and blood and terror. The door slams behind them. 

Barry has just enough time to begin to be really afraid before the first blow hits him, and he’s so startled that he stumbles forward. His foot catches on something -- he can’t be sure what, there’s no form to the room around him -- and he falls to the floor, catching himself on his bound hands. They hit him again before he can get up.

Barry's been in fights before, been hit before, but this isn't that. This is methodical and brutal and relentless, they just keep hurting him. They're landing blows in places they're less likely to do damage, he realizes at some point; they don't want to break anything yet, just hurt him a lot, and that is terrifying. He tries to get up, at first, and when that fails he settles for curling himself in a ball, trying to keep his face shielded, trying to just endure until he can get an opening. 

The door opens, and the beating finally stops. Barry looks up through his shaking arms and can just barely see a pair of boots cross the floor, stop in front of him. He looks up, despite knowing he won’t be able to make out a face at this distance. There’s only a blur of shape and color, and a voice that is sharp and cold. 

“Where is the rest of your army?” 

“Wh.” There’s blood in his mouth. He spits it onto the floor and tries again. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

One of them kicks him in the kidneys. The pain is sudden and immediate and enormous and he half-screams, half-retches. 

The voice asks again. 

They beat him until his whole body is a bruise, throbbing and livid. They beat him until he vomits. Every so often the voice stops them and demands to know where Barry’s army is, where the rest of them crossed the mountain range, what the barons of the neighboring country are planning. 

Barry doesn’t know. The Starblaster hasn’t been on this plane long enough for him to have more than a basic grasp of the local politics, and he and Magnus weren’t out on this recon run for long enough to learn anything. He has nothing to tell them, but they don’t stop asking. They don’t stop hurting him. 

Eventually the voice calls off the beating, leaves him in a shaking, panting mess on the floor while the boots pace around him, slow and methodical. 

“This is your last chance.” It says. “You know what will happen if you do not talk.” 

He doesn’t know, he wants to say. He doesn’t even know that much. 

One of the blurred, hulking figures that have been beating him strip his boots and his socks off; another flips him onto his back and straps his ankles to an elevated surface (maybe a chair, the distant analytical part of his mind supplies). He’s terrified and sore and confused, and he tries to choke out a question, or a protest, something. Anything. 

The blow lands across the soles of his feet and the pain is so immediate, so blinding and awful, that it erases the room completely. He loses control of his bladder, and he screams, a strangled, animal sound. The voice draws closer, like the speaker is crouching down.

“Tell me where your army is and you can walk out of this place right now.” 

“I don’t know.” Barry sobs. “I’m not even from this world, I can’t help you.” 

The voice makes a chiding sound and he’s dimly aware of the speaker rising back to their full height. “You’ll tell us soon enough.” 

The second blow is worse than the first. The pain arcs up his legs, white-hot as lightning. He barely has a moment to catch his breath from screaming when they hit him again.

And again. 

And again.

It’s nothing like the beating. That was brute force that hurt where it hit, but it blurred together after a while. This doesn’t get better, it doesn’t fade, it builds on itself and each blow hurts more than the last and nothing can make it stop. Barry screams and sobs and prays, desperate incoherent prayers to gods he doesn't even worship. He can hardly breathe, throat clogged with snot and tears, raw from screaming. 

One of the blows hits wrong and he feels something snap in his foot, and then every strike hurts _more_, and it’s then that something bursts inside his soul and he starts begging. He begs them in Common, in Elvish, in broken Dwarven, in every tongue he knows. They don't stop.

The pain boils up through his legs and torso and into his head, grows until it's the size of the world, until nothing exists but the pain and the voice and the questions and he doesn't know, he doesn't _know_. He would tell them anything to make it stop if he had anything to tell them, if he could even think of a convincing lie. But he can’t, the pain won't let him concentrate. He can’t say anything but Please and Don’t and No more, stop, please stop.

Where is your army.

How many mages.

How did you cross the border. 

Barry stops being able to think clearly, to think about anything but the pain. He vomits again, brings up nothing but bile that burns his throat and sinuses. Someone yanks him up by his hair until he stops choking on it. Then they drop him. The back of his head smacks against the flagstones and he wishes for a concussion, for a brain bleed, for anything that will take him away from this room for even a few minutes.

He doesn't lose consciousness. They hit his feet again.

Time is a white sea of pain without any edges. The world has no features but the voice, the boots, the rod against his feet. He can't even beg anymore, all that comes out of him is red, raw, strangled _noise_.

He almost doesn't realize it the next time they stop, because the pain is still everywhere, takes an eternity to ebb enough for him to know what the voice is saying.

"-- time to contemplate your choices." Something hard and blunt jabs into the sole of his foot, drags itself along his instep in a line of inescapable pressure against the skin. Barry screams weakly, his voice broken and ragged.

The pressure goes away. The boots retreat, with other footsteps right behind. The door slams, and they leave him there alone.

He breathes wetly, staring unseeing up into the blurred darkness. Every nerve is jumping with terror, with pain. Everything hurts, breathing hurts, moving hurts, being unable to move hurts. But the pain now is nothing compared to the pain during and the thought that it might resume at any time -- that they'll be back and there's nothing to stop them, that he's going to have to do it again -- is almost too much for him to bear. Every tiny sound makes him flinch, and flinching wracks him with pain, and the pain makes him more afraid of them, more helplessly alert for any sound.

He tries a few spells, mouthing the incantations under his breath to keep them from hearing, forcing his stiff, aching fingers into the few somatic gestures he can do with his hands bound. Nothing happens. This place is locked away from any spark of the arcane, all that exists here is brute force and the pain it inflicts.

Something slams against the outside of the door, punishingly loud. He jumps and then he screams as his body spasms with new pain from the sudden movement. There's a loud voice outside the door letting out a mocking version of the sound Barry just made, and then boisterous laughter that recedes down the hall. 

Barry closes his eyes. His heart hammers. It hurts.

Everything hurts.

He falls back into the cycle of hyperawareness and fear. Maybe he drifts away from consciousness at one point, he's not sure; if he does it doesn't last long enough to be called sleep. He's pulled out of it by more noise, further off from the door this time (but not that far, it's not a big building). Raised voices. Slams and bangs.

His stomach clenches and his heart freezes and he's so, so scared, he can't do it again, he can't, he _can't_ he has to think of something to give them, a lie they'll believe or an educated guess or something, anything . . .

The door slams open. He cries out and slams his eyes closed, throws his arms over his face, already begging, babbling, "I'll tell you what you want to know, please, please, no . . ."

"Barry?" Shock at first, and then fury. "Fuck _me_ \--"

Boots on the flagstones. Heavier than the boots before but it doesn’t matter, he chokes on a sob, shakes his head desperately. “There’s a gap in, in the mountains, they used illusion magic to hide it that’s where they came through, please just don’t hit me any more, _please_ \--”

“Barry.” The voice is so, so soft, and the hand that slides under the back of his head is so gentle. “Barry, it’s me.”

He knows that voice. It isn’t the voice that was asking the questions. He takes a wet, ragged breath and cracks his eyes open, tries to see through the blurred dimness, to make out anything above him. It’s all just smears of color, shapes. But he knows the voice.

“. . . Magnus?” 

“Yeah.” Magnus’s voice is thick with emotions, fury and worry and horror. His fingers are already working on the leather thongs holding Barry’s wrists. “I gotcha.”

Barry doesn’t understand what’s happening. “How’d you -- Are they --” He swallows hard. Too many questions, and his throat is parched and sore and he’s still straining to try and hear what’s happening outside the door of this awful, awful room. He’s not thinking very clearly. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Magnus moves on to the straps holding Barry’s ankles, and his hand barely brushes against the sole of one of Barry’s feet.

Barry cries out. He can’t help it. It comes out weak and strangled, he tries to stop himself, but it hurts, it _hurts_. 

“Easy, buddy.” Magnus says tightly, working on the straps. “This is gonna hurt, moving you, and I can’t do much about that. I’m sorry.”

“I know. Just --” Barry closes his eyes, raises his shaking hands to cover his face. Just do it, he wants to say, just hurry before they come back, just leave me alone, just let me die. 

What he says is “They took my glasses,” and he hates how pathetic he sounds. 

Magnus grunts in response. He finishes what he’s doing and eases Barry’s legs to the floor (and it doesn’t matter, it hurts anyway). He rumbles another apology before he gets his arms under Barry’s body and lifts him. 

Barry tries not to scream. He manages to make a noise that isn’t quite that, a long drawn-out agonized groan that ends on a strangled sob. 

“I’m sorry.” Magnus says again, and then he’s running, and every footfall jars Barry’s aching body, and Barry just squeezes his eyes closed and lets this happen, lets the world fall back into pain that he can’t avoid and can’t stop and can’t do anything but endure. 

They leave the stone building and bear off into what must be the woods. He can’t piece together the fleeting impressions that hit him in between the jolts of pain, the sharp smell of dead leaves and the sound of wind, a dog barking somewhere far off, a blur of blackness when he cracks open his eyes. He doesn’t keep them open for very long.

Barry loses some time, then, or at least he thinks he must, because he misses it when they stop running, only comes back to himself when Magnus lowers him to the ground. He’s moving slow, now, every action deliberate and careful, and Barry groans. He can’t stay upright, just half-sinks and half-falls over and curls into himself on his side, shaking. 

“. . . is it safe?” 

Magnus makes a noncommittal noise. There’s a rummaging sound and he slides his bundled-up jacket under Barry’s head. “Nobody’s gonna know you’re gone for a while.” 

Barry nods distantly as Magnus drapes something over him, probably the thin traveling blanket from his pack. He can’t stop shaking, is probably in shock. He wonders if Magnus killed them all, the faceless people who were hurting him. He hopes so. 

Magnus makes a fire. Barry can’t tell anything about where they are, except that they’re somewhere in the dense woods outside of town. He can’t get warm, and every time he shivers it makes everything hurt. Hurt more. Everything feels like it’s happening slower than it should be. He’s covered in his own vomit and blood and piss and sweat, filthy and exhausted, and he should be relieved that he’s not in that room anymore but he can’t feel that. He can't feel anything but hurt.

When Magnus finishes with the fire he sits down next to Barry’s head and rests a hand in his hair, feather-light. “Here.” There’s a water skin close up to his face, close enough he can see what it is. Barry closes his eyes and takes a couple swallows of stale, lukewarm water. 

He can’t tell if it helps or not. The fire might be helping. He’s not as shivery as he was but nothing feels real. 

There’s a silence that feels like it lasts a long time. Magnus pets Barry’s hair carefully. It doesn’t hurt. 

“I’m sorry.” Magnus finally says. His voice is thick like it gets when he's been crying or is about to cry. "About your glasses." He adds.

That's what does it, for some reason. Something inside Barry's chest breaks and he's suddenly weeping. Big wracking sobs that shake his whole body and make it hard to get his breath. He wraps his arms around his heaving chest and curls into himself harder, trying to keep the pain under control.

"I know." It's so quiet Barry almost doesn't hear it. Magnus shifts and stretches out on the ground behind Barry, curls himself close and rubs Barry's back with a big, warm, gentle hand. "It's okay. Let it out."

He doesn't really have a choice about that but it helps to hear Magnus say that he should. It takes a long time before he winds down enough to even think about breathing properly. He doesn't stop crying, really, he just runs out of energy to sob. Magnus doesn't move, a big, safe, warm bulk at his back. 

Barry shakes his head into the crumpled pillow of Magnus's jacket. "I didn't _know_," he moans. Like that's the worst part, not that they hurt him, not that this is the kind of plane when that can happen to someone just for looking like the wrong kind of stranger, not that Magnus had to kill people to get him out of it, but that he didn't know what they wanted to know. 

Shame roils in his guts and he almost gags on it. "I would've told them." He says in a raw, wet murmur. "Anything they wanted me to say I would've said."

"I know." Magnus moves his arm so it's wrapped loosely around Barry, and it tugs at some of his bruises but it's also the safest thing that has ever happened. "There's nothing wrong with that."

Isn't there, Barry wants to say. Would you have? But he doesn't want to know the answer. He doesn't want to think about Magnus in that room.

"We're gonna get home," Magnus is saying. His arm stays where it is. Barry's finally starting to feel warm instead of just not-cold. "Merle will take care of you."

"Okay." Barry closes his eyes. Everything still hurts. 

"It's okay if you're not okay." Magnus says, very very gently. "You're safe but it's okay if you're not okay."

"I'm not." Barry says hoarsely, without opening his eyes. 

"I know." No judgement, no questions. Just Magnus who is always warm and solid and there when people need him. "I gotcha."

Barry nods. He can see the firelight a little through his closed eyelids, a calm reddish-orange glow. He's so tired. He wishes he could sleep until the next cycle, until this body with all the pain and terror and filth washes away in white and he gets a new start.

"Get some rest." Magnus says, like he's reading Barry's mind. The arm around him is heavy, it should hurt too much to bear, but Barry thinks if Magnus moves it he might break again. "I'm right here."

"Okay." Barry mumbles. And then, "Thank you."

"Of course," he says, because with Magnus that's always the answer. Of course.

Barry hurts, and he's scared, and he's ashamed. 

But he sleeps.


End file.
